Academicians hit purging of party-list system

MANILA, Philippines - Members of academe questioned yesterday the manner by which the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is purging the party-list system.

The Comelec had already disqualified over 60 party-list groups from joining next year’s midterm national polls.

University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration and Governance (UP-NCPAG) dean Edna Co cited the “arbitrariness and seeming chaos” in the process of disqualification implemented by Comelec.

“It is difficult for Comelec to cleanse the party-list system without some clear guidelines or criteria that would guide them in the purging or the cleansing. Given such limitation, the Comelec’s decision could be arbitrary,” Co said.

Co believes that while there is really a need to cleanse the party-list system, the Comelec should not simply base it on its “new definition” of marginalized and under-represented sectors.

She said that the poll body should also not associate the party-list system exclusively to marginalized sectors since it should also involve “proportional representation.”

Earlier, former Comelec chair Christian Monsod said there is no provision in the charter that prohibits rich members of a marginalized sector from representing their group in Congress, adding that the only prohibition is for rich politicians to represent sectors they don’t belong to.

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima also advised the disqualified party-list groups to appeal before the Supreme Court (SC) if they would be able to prove grave abuse of discretion on the part of Comelec.

House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. shared the same observation that the Comelec’s disqualification process was like “torture” to the party-list groups, especially to the incumbents.

“I am 100 percent sympathetic with the people who are already here and whenever they ask me for advice, I said the soundest advice I can give is that the Comelec’s ruling is still appealable to the Supreme Court so do whatever you think is proper,” Belmonte said.

APEC seeks SC relief

As this develop, the Association of Philippine Electric Cooperatives (APEC) questioned before the SC yesterday its disqualification.

APEC Rep. Ponciano Payuyo asked the high court to issue a temporary restraining order against the implementation of the poll body’s ruling because the Comelec violated their right to due process when it swiftly annulled their party-list accreditation that they had kept since 1998.

Payuyo said they were summoned by the poll body for continuing compliance of requirements, only to find out that they were already being disqualified.

The poll body had disqualified APEC since it represents electric consumers, which are “not among the marginalized and underrepresented sectors as defined under Republic Act 7941 or the Party-list System Act.”

R.A. 7941 enumerates specific sectors qualified for party-list elections: the labor, peasant, fisherfolk, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, elderly, handicapped, women, youth, veterans, overseas workers and professionals sectors.

In their petition, APEC argued that the Comelec failed to examine further their qualification. They submitted to the SC some 700 pages of documents to prove their qualification as a party-list group.

APEC said that their qualification had already been established by the SC in its previous rulings and cited their numerous accomplishments in Congress.

They said that their disqualification came as a surprise, especially since some of the Comelec commissioners who voted for their disqualification – Commissioners Rene Sarmiento, Lucenito Tagle, Armando Velasco and Elias Yusoph – were the same ones who approved their qualification earlier.

APEC got 313,689 votes in the 2010 polls, earning one seat in the House of Representatives now occupied by Payuyo.

APEC was the second disqualified party-list group to seek relief from the high court. Last week, the Ako Bicol provincial political party filed a similar petition questioning its disqualification by Comelec.

A third group, the 1st Consumer’s Alliance for Rural Energy or 1-CARE is set to file a similar petition this week after it was disqualified also for representing consumers that are supposedly not marginalized or underrepresented.

Higher OAV registrants

Meanwhile, the Department of Foreign Affiars (DFA) said that as of the latest tally last Oct. 30, the total number of overseas absentee voting (OAV) registrants in the ongoing OAV registration has reached 950,216, showing a surge for the upcoming 2013 senatorial and local elections.

The said registration figures surpassed the OAV registration records of new registrants for the 2007 senatorial elections and the 2010 presidential elections.

The total number of new OAV registrants for the 2013 Elections has already reached 360,386. Adding this to the stock total of 589,830, the number of 2013 OAV registrants now is 950,216.  – Rainier Allan Ronda